Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 16 years in prison for rape and sexual assault

First modification: 02/24/2023 – 00:09

Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the rape and sexual abuse of an Italian model in 2013. The one who was one of the most important moguls in the film industry in Hollywood has been involved for years in accusations of women who denounced touching, abuse and rapes amid a wave of complaints within the #Metoo movement.

During the sentence, the former producer appealed to the judge in charge of the case in the Los Angeles Superior Court, assuring that he is “innocent” adding that he “never” raped or sexually assaulted “anyone.” Words that made the victim cry in front of the court while she pronounced them.

The victim’s testimony was key to the trial. Moments before the rejection of the 70-year-old magnate, the Italian actress and model assured that “before that night I was a very happy and self-confident woman. I valued myself and the relationship I had with God”, but concluded that “Everything changed after the defendant brutally assaulted me. There is no prison sentence long enough to undo the damage.”

The defense lawyers tried to reject the sentence and provoke a new trial that would delay the sentence, but this strategy was finally rejected by the judge in charge of the case.

Back in December, the jury convicted Weinstein of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against the woman who, at the opening of the trial in October, dramatically and emotionally recounted how Weinstein arrived at her hotel room without her invited him and assaulted her during a film festival. The victim decided not to reveal her identity at any time due to the media coverage of the case.

From Weinstein’s environment the sentence has been taken as “unfair”. His representative, Juda Engelmayer, assured the American media TMZ that the jury’s decision was “a cruel sentence, given his age, his health and the conditions of his sentence in Los Angeles”, and accused the victim of having “lied in his statements”.

Weinstein was investigated for more cases, but was not convicted

These two cases have not been the only ones that justice has investigated about Harvey Weinstein. Four women accused the producer of rape and sexual harassment in seven different cases between 2005 and 2013. In all of them, the victims reported the same modus operandi, Weinstein took advantage of major events in Hollywood to go up to his victims’ rooms without permission and harass or rape them there.

Of the seven cases, in five of them charges could not be filed. In one of them he was acquitted and in the other four the jury in charge of the investigation was unable to reach an agreement for the accusation. Regarding these cases, the courts of Los Angeles and New York have not yet determined if they will repeat the trials in which the juries did not reach an agreement for the accusation, although preliminary hearings will be held next month on the question.

Harvey Weinstein’s fall due to allegations of sexual abuse was one of the most iconic cases in the world of Hollywood along with the cases of actor Kevin Spacey. The first accusations about the former producer began to resonate in 2015, although it was not until October 2017 when an investigation by the newspaper The New York Times put the spotlight on the tycoon.

This investigation was added, days later, by the newspaper The New Yorker in which a long list of Weinstein’s victims was published during the last decades. A complaint that ended his career.